Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old Indian student, was found dead in a California lake after a six-day search. Just six months earlier, he had graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, with his final post on LinkedIn celebrating his achievement. In the post, he fondly remembered his close friend and batchmate, Kedar.

“This milestone would've been much better alongside my dearest friend and batchmate Kedar. The warm moments & memories we shared continue to inspire,” Sreenivasaiah wrote on LinkedIn.

The tragic twist lies in the fact that Kedar, who was also part of the 2021–25 batch at IIT-M, had died by suicide. In April 2023, Kedar Suresh Chougule, a second-year Chemical Engineering student like Saketh, was found dead in his hostel room after struggling with depression. Reports indicated that Kedar had sought mental health support prior to his death. His suicide marked the fourth such incident at IIT Madras in just three months, according to Hindustan Times.

“He had arrears which he couldn’t clear. From our investigations we have found that he couldn’t study properly and get good grades,” said a senior police officer of the Kotturpuram police station told HT. “He had not attended classes for a week. He has three roommates who tried speaking to him but he wasn’t responding properly to him. On Tuesday, around 9 AM they met him downstairs outside of the hostel. They thought that he would come to class but he hadn’t. We don’t know at what time he died by suicide but when his room-mates went back they found the room locked and they informed authorities.” 

Following Kedar's death, IIT Madras pledged to “take all possible measures to proactively identify and help students under stress.”

Saketh’s final post on LinkedIn, which included a photo of him receiving his degree at the IIT-M convocation in July 2025, read, “There are far too many stories, learnings, and moments to do justice to in a single post.” He dedicated the degree to his late grandfather, “who would've been the happiest to see this moment!”

After this, Saketh's LinkedIn activity mostly consisted of sharing others’ posts about the Deep Tech Innovation Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as updates from fellow students and scholars.

The police investigation in California has yet to release official details, but Saketh’s roommate stated that the authorities were currently treating the case as a suicide.

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Saketh, originally from Tumakuru in Karnataka, was a postgraduate student at UC Berkeley. His body was discovered in Lake Anza near Berkeley Hills on February 14.

New details suggest that Saketh had started withdrawing in the weeks leading up to his death. His roommate, Baneet Singh, shared that Saketh had begun eating less and became more reclusive in the days before he went missing.

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“There were no signs of anything until the last 2 weeks, when he started eating less and engaging less, only surviving on chips and cookies,” Singh said in his LinkedIn post. Singh further said that on January 21, Sreenivasaiah had invited him to Lake Anza, but he declined the offer, saying that he was feeling lazy. “Little did I know that would be the same place he’d take his life,” he wrote.